Best flights to Best Winter Festivals Around the World

The weather outside might be frightful, but these festivals are so delightful you'll wish it was winter all year long.

Photo from F Hamelin

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Las Fallas
Valencia

Flame throwing festivities

Las Fallas
Valencia

Photo from Olga Graves

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Las Fallas, or “the fires” brings more than 3 million people from around the world each year for five days of flame throwing festivities. In order to make fun of Spanish celebrities and politicians, the festival centers around making and destroying ninots, or puppets that portray current events. Each year on March 18, a day known as La Crema, the ninots are set on fire. Popular vote saves one puppet each year. It’s a fun celebration and also includes bullfights, fantastic food and parades.
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Winter Carnival
Quebec City

The world's largest

Winter Carnival
Quebec City

Photo from Seattle Dredge

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Hands down the biggest and most popular winter festival in the world, visitors to Quebec’s Winter Carnival shell out more than $42 million each year! The city turns into a winter wonderland from end of January to mid-February, complete with ice slides, snow rafting, dog sled racing, and tons of decorations. There’s an Arctic Spas Village for those who want relaxation, and winter camping for anyone feeling adventurous. Night owls can celebrate late into the wee hours with night parades and outdoor dance parties.
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Carnevale
Venice

Masquerades along the canals

Carnevale
Venice

Photo from Frank Kovalchek

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Venice’s alleys come alive with music and masquerade balls for Carnevale, the annual festival that starts 40 days before Easter and ends with a massive celebration on Fat Tuesday. Get dressed up in an ornately decorated Venetian mask and marvel at the constant parades, concerts and dances. If your mask is really special, enter the costume contest, held the last week of the celebration and judged by international fashion designers.
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Carnival
Rio de Janeiro

The best Carnival of all

Carnival
Rio de Janeiro

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Italians aren’t the only ones who celebrate Carnival. Rio hosts the biggest in the world. Here, the event only lasts one day, but it’s a day you won’t want to miss. Two million people dance their hearts out, themed floats amaze at the parade, and the costumes are insane. The festival first started in 1723, and has only gotten bigger and better ever since.
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Mardi Gras
New Orleans

The Greatest Show on Earth

Mardi Gras
New Orleans

Photo from Mardi Gras New Orleans

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Everyone knows “The Greatest Show on Earth,” happens in New Orleans, where Carnival gets a Louisiana twist. From January 6th until Fat Tuesday, gather on Bourbon Street and in the French Quarter for raucous nights out and beaded debauchery. Head to the Uptown and Mid-City districts for the big parades, which lead you along Canal Street. Wear a mask, and don’t forget your Mardi Gras beads.
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Sundance Film Festival
Park City, Utah

The largest film festival in the US

Sundance Film Festival
Park City, Utah

Photo from The Blackhouse Foundation

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Held in January, this film festival shows the best work from independent filmmakers around the world. Started in 1978 by Robert Redford’s company, Sundance is now the largest independent film festival in the US, and full of celebrity sightings. The documentary competition is always fascinating, the dramas will keep you on the edge of your seat, and who doesn’t love catching up on the shorts? Best of all, you can catch the world premieres of some of the year’s most anticipated films.
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Winter Party Festival
Miami

Dance for a cause

Winter Party Festival
Miami

Photo from Winter Party

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One of the world’s biggest parties for the LGBT community, this week-long event on Miami beach brings thousands of guests from around the world together for non-stop dance parties. Not only is it crazy fun on Miami Beach, but the proceeds go to local nonprofits. So far, more than $1.2 million has been donated to the LGBT Community Projects Funds of the Miami Foundation. Plus, you really can’t beat Miami heat when the weather is chilly elsewhere.
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Winterlude
Ottawa

Skate in the world's largest ice rink

Winterlude
Ottawa

Photo from Ottawa Tourism

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Winterlude, or Bal de Neige in French, is the annual February festival in Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Canada. The three week festival brings hundreds of thousands of visitors for concerts, ice skating in the world’s largest ice rink, an ice lounge, and an ice sculpture competition. Get out of the cold and into the city’s museums for related winter events and activities.
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Frozen Dead Guys Day
Nedarland, Colorado

Weird and wonderful

Frozen Dead Guys Day
Nedarland, Colorado

Photo from IX Daily

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One of the weirder winter festivals, Frozen Dead Guys day is also one of the most entertaining. It’s based on the story of a woman who brought her dead grandfather to the US from Norway, preserving him with dry ice and liquid nitrogen. The corpse was discovered in 1994 by citizens of Nedarland, and they’ve kept him “alive” ever since through coffin races, a dramatic, slow-motion procession, and a lookalike contest for anyone who actually wants to look like a Frozen Dead Guy. Enter the polar plunge if you’re willing to brace the chill.
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Sapporo Snow Festival
Sapporo

Spectacular snow art

Sapporo Snow Festival
Sapporo

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For a week in February, Sapporo becomes a city of snowy art. One of Japan’s largest events, millions of people flock to Sapporo for the International Snow Sculpture Contest, where detailed statues fill Susukino and Odori Park. The statues are truly spectacular, and the Susukino Queen of Ice pageant held each year brings additional fun.
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Hwacheaon Sancheoneo Ice Festival
Hwacheaon

Frozen marvels and tasty fish

Hwacheaon Sancheoneo Ice Festival
Hwacheaon

Photo from Chung Sung-Jun

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The Gangwon province of South Korea where this festival takes place becomes a frozen tundra in the winter, and this month long festival centers around the river. You can take a stab at ice fishing with your bare hands, taste raw and grilled mountain trout (known as the tastiest in the world), and gaze on ice sculptures that take months to carve. The festival has been included in CNN’s “Seven Wonders of Winter,” and the stunning mountain backdrop is reason enough to visit.

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